My Ascension (Part 2)

Monism is the belief in a singleness or oneness of a concept. A center point that applies to any art or discipline. As a technique evolves over time, divergent paths form.

Monism is at the center of Mage: The Ascension. According to the lore presented in the core rule book, groups like the Nephandi of the Near East brought about the "Mythic ages" through their study and worship of deific forms. "God" is a word that gets thrown around a lot, especially in my neck of the woods, but it's a fitting title for these thoughtforms, as they shift bodies and slither from one century to the next.

A single God. How quaint. How simple it must be to live under one divine structure. You're probably wondering what this has to do with a role playing game. It's all about communicating with gods! Let's circle back to that tiny apartment where I participated in my first Mage session . . .

Like a 'Nam flashback, the scene returns to me. I can "see" it still. My character attempted to use matter manipulation to trap an agent of the Technocracy within the wreckage of his own overturned S.U.V. After a jump-scare right out of Terminator, my fellow mages and I were relieved to learn that the Technocratic agent was in fact disabled, and his final threatening gesture was little more than a death rattle.

(Assuming robots can "die", but that's spitting hairs.)

Before we could celebrate out victory over the establishment, Paradox set in. While bending metal and rubber and concrete to my will was an impressive feat, I'd upset something old and primal in the universe. A strange sensation enveloped my character, then a sharp pain. Then a bulge appeared under his shirt . . . I remove it to find something that wasn't there before: a tiny limb, fresh and pale and underdeveloped was growing from my abdomen.

I made a mistake. My magic hadn't been coincidental enough. I'd pushed on the walls of reality and reality said, "No bruh," and pushed back. So there we were, running back to our safe house after barely surviving a bout with the Technocracy, a gimpy little arm protruding from where it shouldn't.

I warned you things would get weird.

A couple of years later. A different campaign. A different character. I had much more history and lore under my belt, and I was better prepared for what my storyteller was going to throw at me. And I had a secret weapon, to boot. I had "God" on my side, or at least something very similar.

A member of the Virtual Adept (one class of Mage), I utilized telecommunications to make my psychic commands more coincidental and less offensive to the universe. Thanks to Neil Gaiman's American Gods, I had a different understanding of how deific forms might operate in our world and I wanted to use that knowledge to the fullest.

Our group had infiltrated a secret hideout of the Void Engineers, a subsection of the Technocracy that specializes in extradimensional travel. They'd found something from beyond, a very old and very powerful machine that could tip the scales in their favor and obliterate magic once and for all.

Attempting to stop them from cracking the dimensional barrier and recovering the Old Machine, I used a megaphone to not only magnify my voice, but give a destructive sonic force to my words. Like the voice of the Almighty in Dogma, techno-skulls cracked and exploded from the force of the sound. My previous character's trick with the wrecked car paled in comparison to this stunt, but thanks to coincidental nature of the move and a hot roll of the dice, I received very little in the way of cosmic punishment.

The Judeo-Christian God might have sat this one out, but Hermes, master communicator of the Greek pantheon, was by my side.

As you can see, Mage: The Ascension (and all of the White Wolf games for that matter) tends to dip into much stranger territory than your usual run-of-the-mill Dungeons & Dragons game. To be honest, the two scenarios I (poorly) described up above are two of the more tamer instances of my friends and I tampering with forces beyond our comprehension.

Having at least a rudimentary understanding of how Mages work, the next step was to integrate some of the other character types from the World of Darkness. Free-wheeling mages fighting cyborgs is fun for a session or three, but the real wacky stuff begins when you incorporate vampires, lychans, and fae lore into your campaign.

It was time to go book shopping!

To Be Continued . . .

Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-Mail: backissuechris@gmail.com
More gaming stuff: Age of Mega

Magic: The Gathering flashes in my memory

Obviously I don't have enough blogs, even between my comic book ramblings at Back Issue Diving and my wrestling analysis at Work/Shoot, so here goes another one. This is a special place for all of my tabletop gaming memories, be they sweet or sour.

I was quite awkward in my youth and social interaction didn't come naturally, so gaming was my escape. Whole new worlds were contained between the covers of DM Guides and sourcebooks, and in those worlds I could become something more than myself. Brave, strong, smart, and imposing . . . everything I wasn't as a pudgy lad.

Before pen and paper role playing games enveloped me, collectible card games were my "in" at the local game shop. (Armchair Commanders in Corpus Christi, R.I.P.) I'd fiddled with Pokemon, mostly just collecting the cards and scouring the schoolyard for holofoils, but the real beginning of my paper passion was the old standby, Magic: The Gathering.

The game itself began life in 1993, but players were well into the Masques and Invasion blocks by the time I cracked my first booster. I *think* the preconstructed deck pictured above was the first purchase I made, but I also remember getting a box full of junk cards from a schoolmate, so I can't say.

I saw the similarities in game design between my two card game hobbies right away; Pokemon had energy cards while Magic had lands, Pokemon had trainer cards while Magic had instants and sorceries. I'm sure it was a bumpy transition at first, but soon enough I was piloting a white weenie deck against my friends, using Angelic might to purify the land and scorch my foes with my holy light.

Pokemon slid farther and farther into my rearview as I became engrossed with the Magic saga, thanks in no small part to the stunning artwork that has always been a staple of the game. Wizards of the Coast, the game makers, spare no expense in getting the best mind-blowing art that blends Tolkien's fantasy stories with the stranger settings of Marion Zimmer Bradley. There's even a bit of steampunk in there from time to time, thanks to the Goblins and their zany inventions.

I would eventually meld my love of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons of Dragons into a lengthy roleplaying campaign using the setting from a few of the magic sets, chiefly the Odyssey and Onslaught blocks. That's my "golden era" of Magic. Those cards, those decks, those dark themes . . . that's the stuff I always go back to whenever I feel the tingle to get in the mix again.

I did buy some cards last year and I have to say, as much as things in Magic might change from a minutia perspective, the game is basically the same. I was back to battling after only a few hands.

As I dive deeper into my personal history with tabletop games and CCGs, I hope to find a common link between them. There's something scientific in these games, something that plays havoc with my brain chemistry and keeps me coming back every few years. Anyhoo, thanks for reading and hit me up on Twitter (@ChrisBComics) for more frivolity.